White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link

Kelly Link is one of the best writers of our time: full stop. I can say more - I will say more - but I'll start with that bedrock. She's already one of the greats, from the work she's already produced. (And I say that knowing her first novel is fairly new in the world, and I haven't read it yet.)

White Cat, Black Dog was her new story collection last year, gathering seven stories from roughly the previous decade (including, as is traditional, one brand-new piece). Her previous collection was Get In Trouble, back in 2015; I know I read her earlier books but they were long enough ago that I might have read them for work, or just before this blog.

I'm tempted to write a bit about each story, but that urge drags me back to 1992, trying to capture every genre book I read on those fussy little pieces of paper for the SFBC (those who know, know) with a single log-line at the top for genre, a long plot description with all of the names clear and spelled correctly, and a short, separate editorial opinion at the end. It took me a long time to break the habit of writing about books like that, but short fiction always wants to drop me back into it:

Fantasy short-story collection, all based loosely on fairy tales, mostly reprint.

The White Cat's Divorce - A rich man's usual three unnamed sons are sent on various errands to win his fortune, over the course of several years. We follow the youngest son, who...

and so on drearily.

These are precise stories, told uncannily well. When I read these days, I keep an eye out for interesting passages to quote here on the blog - with this collection, I stopped and started dozens of times, wondering if I could quote some particularly devastating moment. Mostly, I couldn't - to explain the moment, it would have taken too much detail, too much explanation. The hallmark of a great short story is that it contains just the right words - no extras, no fluff, nothing extraneous. Link does that, over and over, here.

The collection does start with a white cat and ends with a black dog. Like so many other things, Link means that both literally and figuratively. A word or phrase will rarely have only one purpose in a Link story.

Look: just read it. It's a short book. It's been on multiple award shortlists and "best of" lists. Link has the narrative power of genre, the puzzling insight of fable, and the cuttingly pure prose of literature, all in one writer. You'll thank me afterward.